Street Fighter IV

I know this game isn’t exactly knew but I recently dusted it off and put it in the disc tray and I’m glad I did. I did regret buying the game only a couple of days ago but lately I’ve been having a lot of success with the game. Lets start off with the characters. The characters are cool and unique. I do hate some of the characters but that’s purely because of their moves. I like how I can pick a character and most of the time I can learn the moves and play with them moderately well. Some characters I have more success with than others and that’s most likely because of the controls.

The moves are based on a combination of stick movements and button presses. The buttons are separated into low, medium and high power punches and kicks. Some moves require EX. This is when you have to press two buttons at the same time. The more of these moves you do, the more of your super bar you fill up. Once this is filled you can perform a super move. A super move is a variation of the characters unique move. Your ultra bar is filled up every time you get hit. It’s a risky strategy but if you can pull an ultra move off every single time without fail it may prove to be successful.

I probably have the most success with Ryu, Ken (their pretty much the same person), Abel and Fei Long. I’ll probably add more to the list when I actually unlock more characters. I probably do well with these characters because they all have the same basic controls to do their moves. Characters like these don’t have any fancy stick movements or charge moves which confuse and mess me up. A super move is the best I can do so far, ultra moves seem nigh impossible. I’ve just started getting into combos. Combos can be completed by doing three things: cancelling, linking or juggling. Cancelling is when you start the combination of stick and button movements before the animation of your first hit is finished. Linking is when you let the animation of your first move to finish, you then time your next move so your character hits just as the animation has finished. Juggling is when you perform a move that puts your opponent into the air, moves are then completed.

The training room is a great place to practice. You can set it so you can have your super and ultra metres to infinite so you can practice those. There is a great training mode where you are giving different moves to pull off and it will show you what to do. If you’re starting out, online can be rough. Not necessarily because you’ll get beaten up by pros every time but because it’s hard to find a match with a person of the same skill level as you. I found that I couldn’t find a match with another noob so I ended up getting my ass kicked by some pro who was pulling ultras on me and perfecting every single match.

This game, just like other fighting games can be frustrating if you can’t play it to it’s full potential. I definitely can’t, but when you can the game can be extremely rewarding. Even if you pull off a great combo that you couldn’t do before you feel powerful even if you can’t do it in real life. My advice would be, stick at it. You might hate it at first but you just gotta find that character that fits. Learn combos, they can take a lot of damage and fill your super metre faster. Please, whatever you do, DO NOT BUTTON MASH! Even if you can’t do fancy combos and moves, DO NOT BUTTON MASH! Do not give in to BUTTON MASHING! It’s the worst thing you can do in these sorts of games.